1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a network device that connects a plurality of host computers. More particularly, the present invention relates to a network device, a fiber channel switch that can be shared by a plurality of host computers and a method for shared memory access control.
2) Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, information (data) is shared by host computers, (hereinafter, “hosts”) by connecting all the hosts to a common disk device, and the information is shared by writing the information to the common disk.
However, a shared disk to be shared by the hosts can only be built if all the sharing hosts form a logical group in the form of a cluster environment. This is possible only when all the hosts have the same platform, i.e., the operating system (hereinafter, “OS”). Thus, it is not possible to share a common disk device if even one host has a different OS.
Moreover, a plurality of channel adapters (CA) is required in the shared disk device. This makes the disk array device expensive.